Another Reason To Subscribe

Not that you would know it from the paltry press coverage, but a host of USA PATRIOT Act provisions related to banking and financial transactions went into effect yesterday.

These provisions, barely sketched in the link above, build on the early '70s Bank Secrecy Act, which is widely considered not simply an end run around the Fourth Amendment but a failure in catching criminals and wrongdoers.

The new laws are the subject of a great cover story in the November issue of Reason, currently on newsstands and in subscriber mailboxes. What are you waiting for? A sub to Reason costs only $15 a year and it's a full month before the latest issue gets posted to the Web site.

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A great magazine and getting better all the time. I can still remember finding back issues of reason for the first time in a musty junk shop near the university of washington. Sad to say, I was probably looking for magazines of another sort at the time – ah youth.

I’ve been reading since I was old enough to understand the topics and care about libertarian ideology – probably since I was 15 or 16. (I’m 29 now.) I used to just read my dad’s copies; I think his subscription dates to the early 70s. I started my own subscription last spring as my schedule of visits home became more sporadic.

$15 is a bargain; the magazine has always been very well-written, and its current design and layout are fresh…

Nick, Milton Friedman summed it up quite well when he said, of an anthology of “Reason articles”, “The best of a VERY GOOD lot” I buy every issue of “Reason” at book stores that that I frequent, even though thats more expensive, to help encourage them to keep carrying it. But, if you guys want me to subscribe instead, just let me know.

They put up the Patriot Act sign today at the brokerage firm I work at. Basically just saying that your ID will be confirmed when opening an account.

And I’ll subscribe when Reason gets a clue and concentrates on real issues and gets off their contrarian just for the sake of being contrarian kick. Legalization of pot is not that important.

Look at what the Institute for Justice is doing and look at what causes Reason takes up. The IJ is doing a yeoman’s work for real causes that hit home everyday while over at Reason, it’s take another hit and look for black helicopters with Ashcroft in the passenger seat.

I scrolled down further and realized that Reason had actually pointed out the recent IJ win here in Arizona.

This isn’t why I used the IJ for an example however. I’ve pointed out before in context to the ACLU that if they were truly interested in civil liberties that their agenda would look more like the IJ’s and not as it actually does. So yes, I’m putting Reason together in with the ACLU in as much that it is skewed agenda first, actual rights and liberties second.

And yet another reason: I swear I saw Kermit the Frog on the teevee news this afternoon (CNN or some local deal, I don’t know) and the puppet frog said, despite the implications of “It’s Not Easy Being Green,” that he was a libertarian. Really, this is true. If anyone saw this important footage, maybe they will be nice and share.

I somehow wound up with three subscriptions. I won a year’s worth at the FEE convention in Vegas, which got added to the one I already have, then I think we got one for general donations to RPPI last year. I could add an extension to my house built entirely of brickbats …

The figurative black helocopoters arrived at a client’s place of business the other day in the form of CID investigators from IRS. Why? His broker thought he was moving too much money around without a good reason and made a call.

That is no ‘pipe’ nightmare of a dope induced haze. It is quite real and quite important given that my guy hadn’t done anything illegal.

Legalization of marijuana is pretty important to all the people in jail on non-violent marijuana related charges, and to the people (that would be us) who get to support them afterwards because they can’t find jobs due to their criminal records, or who endure the crimes they commit after learning how to do so while in jail. Oh, and it matters to the folks who get shot up when the DEA goes to the wrong house.

Reason’s pushed privatization in the 70s and 80s before it was big (and RPPI still does so). Now that it is fairly mainstream, the magazine has moved on to other things. I think its cultural coverage is terrific and represents something that no one else is doing. Didn’t Adam Smith say something about specialization and the division of labor.

Legalization of marijuana is pretty important to all the people in jail on non-violent marijuana related charges, and to the people (that would be us) who get to support them afterwards because they can’t find jobs due to their criminal records, or who endure the crimes they commit after learning how to do so while in jail. Oh, and it matters to the folks who get shot up when the DEA goes to the wrong house.

Reason’s pushed privatization in the 70s and 80s before it was big (and RPPI still does so). Now that it is fairly mainstream, the magazine has moved on to other things. I think its cultural coverage is terrific and represents something that no one else is doing. Didn’t Adam Smith say something about specialization and the division of labor?